News Archives - August 2010

New website shows ‘Boris Bikes’ in real time

With London’s ‘Boris Bikes’ now being used for 14,000 journeys each day, the need for an easy-to-use and real-time representation of which docking stations are full has been met not by the organisers of the cycle hire scheme but by a research associate at UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis working in his spare time.

Cap on British electric car grant ‘unnecessary’

Business secretary Vince Cable may feel that his decision to reduce the £230m pledged for Britain’s forthcoming ‘Plug-in electric car grant’ to £43m was unnecessary following the news this week that the Spanish government has paid a similar grant to only 16 drivers this year.

Sewage-powered Volkswagen Beetle relies on six ‘movements’ per mile

A car unveiled this week by Wessex Water that runs on methane gas generated from fermented human waste may have a performance comparable with a petrol-powered vehicle, but range may prove a problem; the converted Volkswagen Beetle relies on the waste collected from 70 households over the course of a year to travel 10,000 miles – an efficiency equivalent to six ‘movements’ per mile travelled.